Published: May 05, 2025, 08:45 AM (IST)
Edited: May 05, 2025, 10:11 AM (IST)
Defeated Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) skipper Rishabh Pant still dreams for his team to make it to the Indian Premier League (IPL) playoffs, for which, they have to win all their three remaining matches.
LSG have won 5 of their 11 matches, meaning they have 10 points, and they are at the seventh place. With some not-so-promising numbers and a Net Run Rate of -0.469, the Rishabh Pant-led side will need more than just three victories in three matches.
“The dream is still alive. If we can win the next three matches, we can definitely turn around and do amazing things,” Pant said at the post match presentation ceremony.
He accepted the 236 runs were too much to chase, and the fielding being below expected- dropped catches was the main reason for this big of a score being posted.
“Definitely too many runs. When you drop crucial catches at the wrong time, it can hurt you badly. We thought it would do more, but we did not pick the length right at the start. But that is part and parcel of the game,” he said.
Even though Mitchell Marsh, Aiden Markram and Nicholas Pooran are three players who have preciously failed to perform desired results, Rishabh pant came to their defence and said that they cannot always hope for them to do well.
“It makes sense when your top order is batting well. Every match, you cannot hope for them to come off. It is part of the game, we have to take it deep sometimes. We had too many runs to catch up on and that hurt us badly,” he concluded.
Speaking about the match, Punjab Kings defeated Lucknow Super Giants by 37 runs in their crucial IPL match to move to the second position in the points table here on Sunday.
Sent in to bat, Prabhsimran Singh smashed a blistering 48-ball 91 and shared a 78-run stand with skipper Shreyas Iyer (45) to lay the foundation, before Nehal Wadhera (16), Shashank Singh (33) and Marcus Stoinis (15) chipped in to propel PBKS to an imposing 236 for five.
In reply, Ayush Badoni fought a lone battle with a valiant 40-ball 74 but lacked support from the other end as LSG were restricted to 199 for 7 in 20 overs, slumping to their sixth loss in 11 games.
Arshdeep Singh (3/16) led the bowling charge for Punjab, while Azmatullah Omarzai (2/33) also chipped in with key wickets.
